Reaping a Gardener's Rewards

August is the best time in the garden. Everything is at it's peak and we eat from the garden everyday!

We've been enjoying our corn immensely. Ella is our resident corn shuck-er. We only have enough to eat fresh this year, not enough to freeze (which I will miss!) because of my uneven watering.

Everyone but Daddy loves beets.

One of our favorite meals is just cooking tons of garden veggies, and maybe some rice. The only additions I made to this meal were butter, salt, and pepper!

We are finally starting to harvest some tomatoes. That's what I get for planting so late, and I knew that but I'm still impatient! The carrots are about ready too.

We have had so much broccoli! I harvest it once or twice a week by the bowl full. It's definitely something I am doing again next year. 

I missed a week of harvesting when we were really busy (camping, cousins in town, end of summer bbqs, etc.) and when I finally got back out there I was overwhelmed! In one day we picked a watermelon, and cantaloupe, a bunch of beets, two bowls of beans, tons of green and aneheim peppers, a large bag of broccoli, two bags of kale (this is endless), loads of zucchini, and three butternut squash. I froze some kale and gave some peppers and zucchini away, but most of it we ate fresh!

Last Sunday I made a classic meal that is 100x better from sratch... burgers and fries! We don't buy grass-fed beef very often, so it's a real treat. We added tomatoes from the garden and baked fries from our own potatoes! It was delish.

Garden to Table

The garden produce is on! We are loving the fresh food on our table!

My friend told me a yummy way to prepare broccoli, and I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before! I spread about a tbsp of coconut oil on top, and some S&P, then roasted it at 325 for about 30 minutes. Delish!

I tried it with beets too, and it was way better than boiling. In the past I have roasted beets whole with skins on, but it makes a mess to peel and cut when they're cooked. This time, I peeled and quartered them first, and they were ready to eat when they came out. Oh they were good.

The green beans are the family favorite right now. No complaints about these tender, buttery boys!

The zucchini is already out of hand! It had been awhile since I made zucchini bread, and no better time than the present. I have healthified my recipe, and in my humble opinion, it's tastier than ever! 

Healthy Zucchini Bread

1 cup succanat or coconut palm sugar
1/2 cup raw honey
1 cup coconut oil
3 eggs
2 cups grated zucchini
1 tbsp vanilla
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 package chocolate chips, optional

Cream sweeteners and oil. Add eggs, zucchini, and vanilla. Sift dry ingredients and add to wet. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Makes 2 loaves.

Tomatillo Salsa Verde

A neighbor gave us a huge bag of tomatillos from their garden. I have never grown or used them before, so I set out to learn how to make use of them!

One of our favorite dinner recipes is a honey lime chicken enchilada with salsa verde sauce. I did a quick google search for salsa verde and found a great one on allrecipes.com here.

First step is to hull and wash the tomatillos and put them in a pot with 2 cups of water to boil until soft (along with remaining ingredients).

Then blend everything in batches small enough for the blender to handle without exploding. And that's it! It was so simple and fast!

Our enchiladas turned out better than ever. I love making things from scratch and enjoying them even more than the store bought, preservative and chemical laden version.

Garden Beginnings

Freshly tilled, clean soil. No weeds. I love a clean slate with all the possibilities!

This week I planted beets, carrots, beans, corn, butternut squash, cucumbers, and watermelon from seed. From starts I planted yellow and green bell peppers, a jalapeno, two zucchini plants, and tomatoes. The varieties I am trying this year are Parks' Whopper, Celebrity (again), and Early Girl.

On the other end of the garden, the peas are growing nicely. 

The lettuce is doing well, and in fact we had our first salad this week! Looks like we will be having salad every night for the next month or more.  Anybody need lettuce? We can never keep up.

Unfortunately, the spinach never does well here! A friend of mine said her spinach always thrives, but it's in a shady spot. I don't know what I am doing wrong, but it doesn't like my garden!
 

The other thing growing right now is the chive I took a start of from my mom last year.

The purple blossoms are so unique!

92 Ears of Corn

Yesterday was corn pickin' day.

It was high time to get it done. In fact, I almost missed the window due to ignorance. This is the first time I have grown corn, and I didn't know there is only a short window of about 10 days when the corn is perfect for picking!

On August 7th we picked our first six ears and it seemed a little immature so we waited a little longer. Then on August 17th we picked some and a few of them seemed almost chewy, which means they had dried out! The best rule of thumb I have found it to pick corn when the silk on top is still green and fresh, and not to wait too long after it turns brown.

So yesterday I rallied the troops and we went out to the garden and picked every ear we could find.... all 69 of them! Combined with earlier pickings our yield was a whopping 92 ears! This amazes me, not only because of the large quantity, but because Mike made a spreadsheet with yield calculations when we planned our garden, and we thought we'd get about 90 ears of corn. Pretty close, eh?

 

My little helping hands...

All loaded up!

I spent the afternoon shucking on the front porch, which was actually very enjoyable now that the temps are not quite so hot and I have pretty plants to look at.

After a four minute dip in boiling water (called blanching to destroy the enzymes before freezing), the cobs were ready for cutting.
 

I read about this awesome idea for cutting corn off the cob--use a bundt pan! It worked beautifully! I just used a sharp knife and spun the pan as I went. 

It seems crazy that 69 ears of corn only filled up 5 gallon bags, but it also filled up two large trash bags with husks and cobs!

I am excited to have fresh sweet corn for the winter and I'm already salivating over recipes like corn chowder and chicken barley chili (with corn). Luckily I saved a few cobs in the fridge to enjoy one last time for dinner... there's nothing like fresh corn on the cob!

Ripe and Ready

My Relief Society president called me on Monday and asked if I wanted fresh blackberries.... well of course I did! She gave us a huge tub and I was thinking we would have to freeze some for later, but we've gone through almost all of them!

We eat them for breakfast....

Lunch....

Dinner... and snacks in between! We used them in smoothies too, and if I have enough left tomorrow I might make a crumble or pie. Ty would eat ALL of them if I let him, he loves them so much!

Another fun thing that's ready to eat is our corn! It's so plump and sweet that I ate one right off stalk, without even taking it inside.

 My girls like to help me "peel" it to get ready for dinner.

Mmmmmm.... nothing like fresh, sweet corn.

We have a lot and of course it's all coming on at the same time so I am thinking of freezing some next week.

Speaking of a lot, I think I have about 50 jalapenos!!! I am using some in salsa but then I might chop and freeze the rest. I know some people can them or make jelly... any other ideas?

Working on canning salsa today! YUM!

Finally, I try to be vigilant about picking my zucchini every day, but this lurker really got away from me!

Homemade Pickles

You know it is time for action when you have seven cucumbers on your counter and your family is already getting cucumber fatigue.

I looked up a pickle recipe online and tried it out. It's a little too sweet for me so next time I'll probably cut back on the sugar.

Refrigerator Pickles

2 large cucumbers
1 small onion
2 stalks celery
1 green pepper
1 clove garlic
Dill 

Boil:
1 c. sugar
1 1/4 c. vinegar
1/4 c. salt (or less)
1 1/2 c. water

Slice vegetables thin. Put in plastic or glass container along with dill and garlic. Boil brine mixture and let cool. Pour over sliced pickles and refrigerate. Ready to eat in 2-3 days and keeps well.

(Recipe adapted from cooks.com)

Lunch

I took a picture of my lunch today because it was so good. I LOVE fresh garden produce!!!

We had fried zucchini and onions, plus a big bowl of green beans for dinner on Sunday and these were leftovers because we couldn't finish them all. And that was after Ella ate almost a whole plate of beans herself! They are delectable with a little salt and butter...

I don't have any red tomatoes yet but my neighbor does, and they shared some with us. (More on that in a minute). There is nothing in the world as good as a garden tomato sandwich. My father-in-law taught me to make it with hummus, which ups the delicious factor even more!

I planned on eating chips & salsa too, but I was too full so I saved it for snack time. I recently got a salsa recipe from my brother-in-law that is to die for! My jalapenos and onions are ready for picking so I made it to go camping last weekend, and it got scarfed by young and old! Here is the recipe for anyone interested in trying it:

JT's Salsa

One 15 oz can of tomato sauce
3-4 tomatoes (or 3-4 handfulls of grape tomatoes)

4-5 jalapenos (seeds mostly removed)
0-3 serrano or fresno chilis if available
10 mini sweet peppers or mild banana peppers or 1 - 1.5 large sweet bell peppers
1/3 cup sweet onion
1-3 cloves crushed garlic, depending on size
cilantro
juice from one small lime or 1/2 large lime

The more variety of peppers, the better it tastes. Use the best tasting tomatoes you can find.

My usual spices:
cumin, coriander, paprika, oregano
I don't measure, but I only use these sparingly, maybe 1/4 tsp each.

Sometimes I add:
fresh ginger root
horseradish (1/2 tsp)
parsley
chives

Put everything in a food processor, starting with the spices, hot peppers, and tomato sauce. Then add the rest & run it until it chops it to the desired size of chunks.

Back to my tomato sharing neighbor... He has a special pruning method that helps set fruit sooner. He pinches off every little offshoot from the main canes of the plant and stakes them up really tall. I think cutting back on the vegetative growth sends the energy into fruit production sooner.

I thought about doing this myself because my tomatoes are huge sprawling masses of vegetation and they only have small green tomatoes on them so far. I learned, however, that my tomato variety 'Celebrity' is determinate, meaning it is bred to grow to a certain height or size, and then stop. Indeterminate varieties, on the other hand (such as Big Boy, Early Girl, Beefsteak, and most heirloom varieties) continue growing and producing vines until the frost kills them back. Only indeterminate varieties should be pruned. Maybe next year I will try a few of each so I can get early and late tomatoes.

State of the Garden

 We harvested our first lettuce this week! It is such a good feeling to bring it from garden to table!

It didn't come in very evenly, but I think it's because there was a little crust on the soil when the seelings were trying to break through.

Actually, all of my seeds came up patchy.... poor carrots.

The pumpkins are already growing rapidly. There are two mounds like this and I should probably thin them before they go crazy!

The row of cantaloupes are looking good.

The corn is growing nice and even. The back row is mammoth sunflowers. They are going to be beautiful!

The peas are getting a little taller. They aren't as impressive as my neighbor's, so next year we'll have to start in February like he did! (I love how I accidentally framed Ella with the chicken wire.)

The shallots came in really well.

I finally convinced Mike to save me the grass clippings to use in the garden. We're going to try using them to keep the weeds down on the rows.

In other news, Mike borrowed a bobcat from a neighbor and cleared our back yard again. It helps to be able to imagine what we want to do back there. We may not get to it this year, but we can at least dream....circular paver patio, extended deck, fire pit, playset, and of course more grass...